I received this book from the publisher/Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I just adore Dolly Parton and I adore books like this. Early reader books, but this one goes even earlier, to baby! I just love that they are making biographies for babies. Perfect!

However, I am just not entirely sure if I would recommend this for babies or toddlers. It is quite text heavy along with some words that I am not sure most kids would get (like status quo/gender equality/high school dropout rate/philanthropic for instance). What I had expected from a baby/toddler book is easy words to describe Dolly Parton, maybe some more interactive elements, like can you dance like Dolly or sing a little song or wear you most colourful outfit. Or maybe just let Dolly tell you all about it, akin to how the Miffy books are formatted. However as it is I am not entirely sure it will work. The first part could technically work (though the 2004 part definitely was just TOO much) and the songs are fun (though maybe a link to Spotify/another streaming service so you can immediately listen to them), but the impact section is really a bit too much.

I am guessing that there is a proper end to the book but my copy just cut off after 2018.

But good things, I did like how much information it contained, there were some things I didn’t know, but most I knew (mostly because I recently read a book about Dolly). I loved the addition of the songs in a lot of the section. And I loved how the book was formatted. One illustration and then some text. I loved the pages with text how they were colourful and bright and had cute little stars and other things on them.

The art was really fun, I love the style and I love seeing Dolly in various ages and various outfits.

All in all though. As it is I really enjoyed it so I would like to give it 4 stars. However for a baby/toddler book? I will give it a 2. So let’s go for 2.5? It is not necessary that the book is bad, but I just question the baby/toddler classification.